Let it be known through all of the land I am the Auto champ and Alvin has been dethroaned !!!!!

Alvin was still 30 feet up when I pulled out of the Alabama Death Diving Auto at 15 feet and was bringing it on in for a nice soft landing, then in desperation to try and save the humiliation of defeat Alvin flaired his Titan and fluttered his blades above my head and spooked me so that I flinched and turned and shielded my head thinking I was about to be hit by his chopper completely losing concentration right at the last second of my auto and splatage happened.

To be fair I am not 100% sure he intentionally spooked me although I think he did. Witnesses say his chopper was never close to putting me in any danger but it sure sounded like it and I reacted instinctively without time t think that cetainly he would never hit me and I should just trust him and land my chopper. It was split second thing and it was all she wrote for my poor Raptor.

But I was first to the Ground and he was eating dust !!

:o Hmmm!!!! Under those conditions, I think I'll always be last in this contest ;)

That was not my rotor blades fluttering.

That was the cheeks of Steve's butt slapping together as he realized that impending disaster was upon him. :o

After I saw the yellow blur of Steve's Raptor flash by at terminal velocity and felt the ground shake as he entered the subterranean race course, I knew that I could not beat his penetration and settled my chopper in for a nice soft touchdown.

I will have to accept defeat and acknowledge that Steve bested me in the first into ground auto contest. :banghead:

You heard it hear Folks! admision of defeat ! :D

A Champion is born!!!!!! :cloud9: :thumbup: :dance:


I still think Alvin used an old veterans dirty trick on a rookie, and intentionally spooked me. Therefore, although it pains me to have to be so harsh, I am forced to officially take back any former comment that may have been taken as a full or partiall appology for the incident with the U.G.L.Y. Plane! :biggrin: I hope you have to replace the entire Tail wheel assembly and get a small splinter in the process. :fuming:

Steve wanted an award for his acomplishment, but I figured that this might be the best way to go for all concerned.

Amen, she is the best!

To bad you lost Alvin, :huh:

You could have been the one to have to rebuild your chopper ;)

sorry bout the chopper steve but you did get a new award and a certificate for the miss's. I wanted to make it to the field this weekend but i do have to act likie a husband and i am stuck in this hotel room in Hattisburg instead of flying so i will catch you all next saturday and sunday i plan on staying the weekend instead of driving back and forth

In retrospect, perhaps the fastest to the ground Auto contest was not the best idea Alvin ever had, but it was fun until I won. I know there are members of this club that think I am not very intelligent because of the way I fly and the results are sometimes costly. I could be intelligent if I wanted to but that would ruin the fun I am having, the last few weeks I had managed to have fun and not destroy anything. Yesterday was just a bad day, so I will rebuild both Choppers again and try again to see if I can keep them in one piece for a long stretch, BUT 2 choppers in one day is more than even I can stomach, especially when I look at them now and see all the hours of work in my head.

I will be taking a few weeks off of chopper’s and working on some stuff that has needing to get done with a couple airplanes I have. The choppers are going to sit un-repaired until my 120 size CAP 232 is flying and 2 other planes I have that need some touch up work are all touched up. To bad this had to happen because I was just starting to get inverted flight down and was doing more and more different maneuvers and combos of maneuvers every flight, oh well I’ll just have to pick back up where I left off when I do get the stomach to face the repairs again.

Wait, so what happened with the Hawk yesterday?

Long story, but in a nut shell. Tail Blade grip bearing came apart and one tail blades, grip and all slung off in flight. The Hawk made a very strange sound and started piroetting (sp) I hit the auto switch and brought it down way out in the field, minimal damage considering the circumstance.

To bad since the last Flight saturday night at 7:30 just as it was getting dark I had a similiar event when the tail push rod came apart, only difference was that I made a remarkable saving emergency auto saturday night. I set it down past the end of the runway over the hill, the last couple feet were blind to me the Hawk just disappeared over the hill. I thought I had crashed it then, but when I walked out and it came in to sight it was perched just perfect on it's skids and completely undamaged (or so I thought but now I think it must have bumped on the tail rotor pretty hard and thus damaged the bearing that came apart on the first flight Sunday)

I had flown the Hawk 5 flights saturday with the express purpose of learning to fly inverted, I spent about 75% of the total flight time inverted and was getting pretty comfortable with it. What a difference 1 day makes, from Hero to Zero in less than 24 hours ! :angry:

;) Now I see why you couldn't buy my radio :D

If you wouldn't have 'won' you probably could have bought it and had money to spare :hyper:


Just Teasing :^)

thanks, but I had already thought about that and it was depressing enough the first time. :crying:

on a side note, I did win the race to the gate for a third straight time !! and I locked the gate behind me, that will teach him !! :dance:

Whew!!! I'm not doing any racing against you guys.... You're way to serious :wacko: :wacko: :wacko:



:D

Sorry Jon, but all crashes are paid for out of the dumb a$$ reserve funds, he is not allowed to use those funds for frivolus things like new radios, cuz on any given weekend he is likely to commit a dumb a$$ stunt :banghead: and I can't allow that money to come out of my "new clothing" fund! :hyper:

maybe we should start a dumb thumb support group :P
jk

You sure throw that "Dumb Thumb" term around awfully loosely my friend.

A tail rotor slinging off and a very gallant attempt at an emergency auto save that was almost successful, and getting the bejesus scared out of me a half second from touch down on a high speed diving auto from 400 feet are hardly "dumb thumb" crashes. My wife has been relentless to point out that it was a "dumb a$$ thing to participate in the competition in the first place" but even if she is right then it is me who is dumb not my thumbs. so don't be talking bad about my thumbs anymore they can out fly you on any type aircraft without even cracking a knuckle first.

I'll take crapola off of you when I see you break your personal best and fly something more than once in row without something breaking apart or you crashing it.

Did I mention the fabulous emergency auto at near dark Saturday night, almost 1/4 mile away from me that resulted in not a scratch on the old Hawk. Sundays was almost as good but did hit hard and bend the spindle shaft and probably the main shaft and break a couple linkages but the tail boom and main blades were not damaged so that tells you, considering the circumstance my thumbs did a pretty good job of minimalizing further damage. As to the Raptor I still think I was just victim of an old trick that those who have been flying for 30 years have used many times on unsuspecting rookies like myself, I will not be so easily shaken next time.

Hey, where do I get one of those at? B)

I've been doing it wrong all these years :banghead:

Trust me Jon, Steve makes it very difficult to keep funded. We keep having to import more and more of those little 3rd world children to keep the sweat shop running. :blink: :o ;)

He's probably got them back there now rebuilding his latest 'oops'........ :wacko:

I see several of the RC chopper guys fadeing fast now. :(

Must be a little too hot in the kitchen. :fuming:

Suck it up and give up those planks, chopper pilots are revolutionists. :wacko:

Might soon just be me and Randolf. ;)

no,no, no! Do not mis-understand me, I am and always shall be for as long as I am in R/C be a chopper pilot first and the planks are just something to do every now and again.

It is just that I was faced with having to repair one or both choppers in a week and decided to take my time a little bit and take care of a couple of other things that have been on the back burner. I want to make sure both choppers are 100% so I do not have parts falling off in flight again, both will be 100% like new before they burn up the skies again. It won't be that long just not this week end.

Do not worry, I have no intentions of pulling a "Mike McGlaughlin" I'll be back and I will continue to apply pressure on the rest of you to try and keep up.